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What I'm Whatevering Wednesday

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Internet, meet Trotsky:

Trotsky the puppy (about 4.5 months old)

Trotsky gnaws on a stuffed chicken four times his size

So-called Trotsky for the world's most ridiculous approach to puppy locomotion: he looks more like a bunny rabbit than a dog. He is about four and a half months old and weighs about 3.75 lbs. He came home yesterday and since then we have learned that he likes chasing leaves and stealing flip-flops and does not like walking on the grass when it's wet because he is very small and even the just-cut grass is pretty high for him. Really, do I need another answer, to what I'm doing this week? 😍

Well, if I do... )

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Signal Boost: A Very Magicians Hallmark Holiday - Registration is NOW OPEN!

[FIC] "Measure by Measure" (~5.2k), The Magicians, Eliot/Quentin, Explicit

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"Measure by Measure"
by [personal profile] greywash [AO3]
The Magicians (TV), Eliot/Quentin, Explicit, ~5.2k

Eliot and Quentin learn to cook.

Warning for disturbing content, but it's super super soft (full explanation in my author's notes on AO3); spoilers through 4x13 but then I gave 4x13 the middle finger soooooooooo. I keep my warning policy in my AO3 profile and am always willing to answer private DW messages or emails asking for elaboration or clarification on my warnings for a particular story.

Read it at AO3



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What I'm Whatevering Wednesday

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Guys, this dog. He is so cute! But he has discovered ~continuous barking~. I have not murdered him. I am counting this my weekly victory. If I can manage to gather my wits enough to do it, I will add a picture of him in an XS raincoat to this post (it is much too big).

There's other shit going on but honestly: right now I'm just focused on (a) my actual job, (b) ignoring the barky, barky dog while trying to do my actual job, (c) house paperwork round seven thousand, and (d) "echo, the echo" 9. throwing a mental health issues cw on this... )

[personal profile] breathedout has been freed from jury duty, I tidied up (mostly) the living room while tests were running today, and we have Thai delivery on the way. Oh and we're watching Schitt's Creek! Like every other poor depressed queer bastard burned by The Magicians rn I guess, so. *solidarity fistbump*, and yes, also, it's very charming.

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[FIC] "Theory and Application" (~12k), The Magicians, Alice&Quentin, Eliot/Quentin, Teen

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Okay believe it or not, smallish burst of short(er) fiction aside, I actually am almost done with "echo, the echo" 9 (...Friday, maybe? over the weekend?); it'd just be REALLY SUPER GREAT if I could try to write flash fiction and actually succeed in the "flash" part of that again, someday.

.......in the meantime:

"Theory and Application"
by [personal profile] greywash [AO3]
The Magicians (TV), Alice & Quentin, Eliot/Quentin, Explicit, ~12k

Alice attends some parties. Quentin changes careers.

Started for the last [community profile] fan_flashworks challenge so they get credit for the prompt ("Magic"), but boyyyyyyy was this not how I was initially intending for this to go, so even if I had finished by the deadline, it kind of would've felt like cheating to count it. Warning for disturbing content (fuller explanation in my author's notes on AO3, but—for basically the usual post 4x13 reasons); just like last time, spoilers through 4x13 but then I dropkicked the ending of 4x13 down a well. I keep my warning policy in my AO3 profile and am always willing to answer private DW messages or emails asking for elaboration or clarification on my warnings for a particular story.

Read it at AO3



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In lieu of a more normal What I'm Whatevering Wednesday...

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...instead have this very long and frustrated rant on my brain [actually less busted than usual because medication] and the number of hours in the day [still unfortunately only 24]. )

On the brighter side, we had a really great weekend (we went out of town! we got some sun! we rode a roller coaster! we wrote some words!), and I actually did get a lot of stuff done, in addition to having loads of fun, and I am hopeful that I can maybe get myself a little more dug out this weekend. *fingers crossed, etc*

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What I'm Whatevering Wednesday: 2019.06.19

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I think it's been a literal month since I did one of these, jeez. Work blew up—this week, for example, I have thus far worked a twelve-hour day and an almost-twelve-hour day—and Trotsky is a Good Boy but also a handful. I'm also back to scrambling to get 39 Graves in order before the deadline (less than a month, now). All that said, though, I'm taking part of today to try and get explore some stuff that isn't All Work, All the Time, so:

What I'm reading Wednesday... )

...what I'm writing Wednesday... )

...and what I'm watching Wednesday! )

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What I'm Whatevering Wednesday: 2019.06.26


What I'm whatevering Wednesday(ish) + DW weekend accountability 2019.07.04

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BOY, GUYS. I feel like you know when life has been kind of out of control when you wake up on the first day of a four-day weekend and your first thought is "Oh, thank God, I can clean so many things."

So, I mean, happy 4th of July or whatever but—lots of housekeeping for the weekend, some literal, some not so literal. Also at least two work tasks I didn't quite finish last night, blah, but I'm hoping neither of them are huge. I'm also rolling this into my "What I'm Whatevering OKAY FINE IT'S THURSDAY" post for the week, since it's related (see: what I'm writing... the to-do list bits at the bottom will be kept updated as I go.

What I'm doing... )

...what I'm writing... )

...what I'm reading. )

~ ~

ANYWAY, with all of the above in mind, here is my (somewhat squashy and to-be-edited) weekend to-do list:

Thursday-Friday )

Saturday )

Sunday )



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What I'm Whatevering Wednesday: 2019.07.10

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First—I apologize that I haven't been replying to comments, I'm in a sort of... kudos-only-available-social-spoon brainspace, but thank you to everyone who has been saying nice things in my WIWW posts (and elsewhere). ♥

I actually got through quite a bit more of last week's combined WIWW/long weekend to-do list post than I ticked off—I just wasn't at a computer consistently. I also feel like that was either eleven minutes or forty-seven years ago, or possibly, somehow simultaneously both, so—this week's WIWW is therefore somewhat nonstandard in format. But here are this week's greatest hits:

Re: work [short]. )

Re: dog [very long]. )

Re: writing [medium]. )

Re: reading/watching [short]. )

Re: checklists:
(short-ish and also I think possibly of wider interest, so it's not behind a cut)

Last time, [personal profile] jesse_the_k asked how I did my checklists—tbh, they're really low-tech; I'm just using the Unicode "ballot box" sequence, and entering them as HTML entities:

  • ☐ is "☐" and I use it for pending/actively in progress
  • ☑ is "☑" and I use it for done
  • ☒ is "☒" and I use it for deferred or in progress but waiting (e.g., I had to send an email and do something with the response, and I've sent the email but I haven't gotten the response, so I can't do anything with it yet).

...then I edit the post as I go. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I really wish Unicode had a ballot-box-with-line-through-it, but they don't, so ☒ is the next best thing. The only thing I really don't like about this sequence is that ballot-box-with-checkmark renders as an emoji on (many) phones and the other two don't (there is an unchecked-ballot-box emoji, but on my phone, at least, only the checked version automatically loads from the unicode). This is visually unsatisfying but not something I have a my-end fix for, so I roll with it. I don't ever remember the numerical codes, but I do remember the sequence (i.e., numerically it goes: unchecked, checked, x-ed out), but the magical phrase to search for is "unicode ballot box"—that'll turn up the unchecked version, and then you can either search for "with check" or "with x" or just remember the sequence the way I do.


This post took me basically 1.5 hours to write 98% of, and another 4.5 hours to finish previewing it and checking my HTML in 30-second bursts while I waited for tests to run. *ongoing glazed stare*



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blaaaaaaaaaah

What I'm Whatevering Wednesday: 2019.08.07

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Gosh, you guys, the summer we are having. I'm basically just—a human shrug emoji at this point, so:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But I think it's been... a month? Jeez, already?? But—something like that, at least, since I did one of these, so here's the State of the Gins (and HBBO, since she will inevitably be swept up in such a thing—don't worry, I'm getting her approval):

What I'm doing... )

...what I'm writing... )

...and what I'm watching and reading. )

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various and sundry

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Friends, this is the first time I've logged into Dreamwidth in something like... I don't know. I haven't logged in, p sure, since before our trip to LA in mid-August; it may've been even longer. I feel like [personal profile] breathedout's rundown (house! dog! life! work!) is better than I could do, not in the least because hers comes with a link to a story. I do not have any stories to share at this moment; apologies.

Anyway, because I never post but to go on, at length—

I have this sort of... question, lately, that I live with in a very uncomfortable way, in this post-Tumblr fannish world of ours, about being 'fannishly active'. )


From a writing perspective... I'm just going to share a small, yet I think pretty enjoyable, snippet of Margo and Eliot from my MHHE fic, which I believe to be spoiler (and prompt-indentifier) free. It's quite long, though (consider it my Wednes Sun Whateverday Six for like—alllll the weeks I missed); and also comes with a light disturbing content warning [for discussion of a douchebag hitting on Margo in a super gross, yet also totally pathetic, way]): \'Margo is there: little and determined and mad about everything; a banker hit on her on the plane, and her relish over his inevitable destruction would get Eliot through a lot more than a traffic jam.\' )

Anyway. MHHE chugging along; I'm behind where I wanted to be but not, I think, seriously in trouble. Let's see if I can keep that one up...


And then there's...... the other thing.

Which is—re: my first three months on ADHD meds, and also heavily involves on a super, super hot-button issue, namely: weight; and also—it's super, super long, so I'm putting it behind a cut. Cut for discussion of mental health issues, psychiatric medication, weight and weight loss (yes, including numbers), and the sort of... complicated social gyre swirling around the intersection of those three things. )

Hm. I've been sort of sitting here waffling back and forth over leaving comments on this open; I decided just to disable them and skip the whole hullabaloo, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANYWAY THAT'S WHAT'S UP WITH ME, ahahahahahahhaha, in five thousand words or fewer. Just barely. Yay?



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What I'm Whatevering Wednesday (ish) for 2019.09.18; and a rec.

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Well, I continue to be barely on DW, which is kind of a drag, but I am beavering away in the background on a) my actual job, which is—*endless screaming*, etc, you know, the usual; and b) MHHE. I'm a bit over halfway through my draft for MHHE; my word count is slightly humiliating; lots of work yet to be done, but—well. Sort of the nature of the beast, isn't it, when you're a bit over halfway through.

I actually logged on because I was like "OH RIGHT! IT'S WEDNESDAY! That's my snippet-posting day!!" and then realized—I think I've hit the point in this draft where literally every sentence I'm writing for MHHE is so spoilery I can't even excerpt it. So—instead, have this snippet from another, temporarily-on-hold fic [the virginity kink/married-sex kink story], which is longer than six sentences, but not by much... )

And the rec:

Clockwork (11026 words) by celestialskiff
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Magicians (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson/Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker
Characters: Quentin Coldwater, Eliot Waugh, Julia Wicker, Margo Hanson
Additional Tags: Curtain Fic, Fluff and Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Eliot and Quentin are a rock solid couple, Depression, Canon Disabled Character, Adults doing boring adult things CW, inability to have children, But there are a lot of kids in this fic, Julia Wicker/Penny Ayiodi background/implied, Light Dom/sub, light humiliation kink, Crying, talking about feelings, Fillory (The Magicians), New Jersey, Oral Sex, Body Hair, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fen/Margo Hanson background/implied, Autism Spectrum
Summary:

“Quentin still broody?” Margo asked, when they were sipping brandy on the porch after dinner.

A curtain fic in which Quentin and Eliot can’t have the family they’ve longed for. Quentin mends toys; Eliot makes coffee for everyone.

I feel like I had more intelligent things to say about this when I read it over breakfast but now I'm basically just, like, seventeen emojis connected with inarticulate moaning, so. This story is great and I just—I cannot recommend it highly enough.



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Signal Boost: they really should have known the one thing we know is how to bring receipts


Halloween, et cetera

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I have become a deeply boring person who does nothing but works and writes and works and writes and works and works and works and then—MORE FREQUENTLY THAN I WOULD LIKE, i.e. never—whisks their puppy to the puppy ER at 4 pm on a Wednesday because he STOLE MOM'S WITE-OUT TAPE in the like 0.07 SECONDS it was even remotely in reach and then SHATTERED THE DISPENSER and MAYBE ATE SOME SHARP BITS OF PLASTIC and ALSO MAYBE ATE SOME TAPE and ALSO NOW YOU HAVE TO CALL ANIMAL POISON CONTROL and then he gets ALL THE LOVE from the EMERGENCY VET and also PEOPLE FOOD, because the vet said to give him half a slice of bread with his food with every meal for a couple days, just to help keep things moving along, so he is SO PROUD OF HIMSELF IT CANNOT BE CONTAINED; but—

Well. He's perfectly fine, even if he doesn't have the sense God gave a radish, so: no harm no foul except for the like missed 2 hours of work for both moms and also TERROR and ANXIETY and SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS; and now it's Halloween, which means, I'm sure, that what you REALLY want is: a whole bunch of pictures of a tiny dog who is also kind of a little shit vamping in his unicorn hoodie—

Trotsky the Unicorn, part 1: no pictures please
Trotsky the Unicorn, part 2: licking his nose
Trotsky the Unicorn, part 3: how YOU doin

Since you can't see it in the pics, his hoodie lights up. It also says "I'm not weird, I'm a unicorn!" which is, as [personal profile] breathedout has pointed out, patently false, because he is clearly both weird and a unicorn.

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urrrrk

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I'm up at early o'clock because I had a TERRIBLE DREAM about the TINY DOG who is FINE and also UGH GO AWAY MOM M'SLEEPING STOP LOOKING AT ME, so now seems as good a time as any to say:

  1. I did finish my MHHE fic. Somehow, ahahahaha. And—

  2. Once I get this sucker fully HTML set and the draft totally ready to post on AO3, I'm going to be doing a bunch of statistical analysis on my writing spreadsheet, and probably writing a handful of navel-gaze-y DW posts about stuff like: a) what goes on in this Cadbury egg I call a brain when I write, now with more 1000% math; b) why am I so crap at estimating length/complexity, anyway; c) adventures in writing to an outline; d) Continuity Edits and You: OMFG What Have I Gotten Myself Into (rule #1: stay hydrated); and, generally, a whole bunch of writing-meta stuff like that.

    So basically, TL;DR—if there are specific things that anyone reading this actually wants me to talk about, re: What I Learned on My Summer Vacation Extended Half-Year Detour Into Writing A Deliberate AU, hit me up. [FTR: I am probably going to hold the actual posting of these posts for after my MHHE goes live, so I don't need to worry about keeping the fic itself or my posting date anonymous. (Given the timing/content of this post, I think I can safely say—I'm posting my MHHE fic sometime after December 5, LOL.) I maaaayyyyyy even end up waiting to post the writing meta stuff until January, but we'll see.]

  3. God, I have so many WsIP I want to get back to?? I was idly flipping through my short fiction Scrivener doc looking at them and being like, "OH RIGHT, THIS SUCKER," over... meal (breakfast? was that breakfast??) the other day, but I will say here: despite my desperate guilt over where I left both "build your wings" and "echo, the echo" due to suddenly needing to spend basically 187% of my free time on my MHHE fic, the first thing I'm probably going to actually finish is this virginity kink story from the same universe as "Theory and Application." Why? Because I want to, that's why.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SO. Anyone got writer-meta Q&A questions for me? Now's your chance!



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REC: "How to See Lexington, Kentucky on Twenty Dollars A Day"

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HEY FRIENDS, have you seen the FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC fic [personal profile] breathedout wrote for [tumblr.com profile] themagicianshhe? Because it is A DELIGHT:

How to See Lexington, Kentucky on Twenty Dollars A Day (34059 words) by breathedout
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Magicians (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Penny Adiyodi/Frankie Gallo, past Penny Adiyodi/Julia Wicker
Characters: Penny Adiyodi, Frankie Gallo, Julia Wicker, A bunch of annoyed holiday travelers
Additional Tags: luck magic, curse magic, Zany hijinx, Prickly Strangers to, Friends With Benefits, Stranded in Middle America, Only one room at the inn, Feelings Porn, Porn Porn, Complementarity, Casual Sex, For Science!, This entire story is an excuse for, Semi-Erotic Bible-Themed Miniature Golf, not really romance, Foot Fetish, Foot Massage, Frottage, Anal Fingering, Coming Untouched, Blowjobs, Mildly Unsafe Sex, Inadvertent property destruction, Passing allusions to the existence of systemic racism homophobia and fatphobia, Mild poking of fun at the cultural hegemony of Christianity, Walks In The Woods, Childhood discussions, Dance Contests, Casual alcohol use and overuse, Mutually amicable breakups are still hard
Summary:

It's not just the hangover, or his fiancée leaving him the literal day before the California vacation they'd planned together: Penny Adiyodi is legitimately cursed. Magically; metaphysically; possibly demonically: the whole deal. He has been his entire life, so there's no point in fighting it: least of all when sitting next to a weirdly entitled stranger on a packed cross-country flight, two days before a culturally compulsory holiday he doesn't even celebrate. But when the plane is grounded in Lexington, Kentucky, and Penny's seat-mate, Frankie Gallo, is somehow able to effortlessly secure the two of them the last hotel room in town, Penny starts to think something even stranger than usual is going on. Strange enough to suck it up and endure the dude's presence for a night, anyway—just to see what he's about.

And honestly, the more time Penny spends holed up with Frankie in suburban Lexington, the stranger it gets. But Penny has to admit it also gets more interesting. And better, too, actually. A lot better. So there's that.



I'm super behind on my MHHE reading (i.e. I have read no things, none, not until my draft is ready), but I had the good fortune to beta this one, so I got in ahead there. It is very, very difficult to chose a favorite part of this story, but—go for the semi-erotic Bible-themed miniature golf; stay for the everything else. 😍 😍 😍

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FIC (+ART!!!!!): "our place in the family of things"

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All y'all, I am so tired I can barely type, I have had A Weekend of technical difficulties—which is extra fun because.............

................it is my MHHE posting day today! ANYWAY, I haven't had breakfast and it's 12:35 pm and also I have slept 7 hours in the past 48, BUT EVENTUALLY, WE GOT THIS SUCKER UP:

our place in the family of things (208512 words) by greywash, yourtinseltinkerbell
Chapters: 11/11
Fandom: The Magicians (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Eliot Waugh and his mother, Margo Hanson and Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson/Eliot Waugh (minor; implied)
Characters: Eliot Waugh, Eliot Waugh's mother, Quentin Coldwater, Margo Hanson, The Past - Character
Additional Tags: Additional Warnings Apply, See Story Notes for Warnings, Artist-Author Collaboration, Illustrated Work, Near-Canon AU, Established Relationship, Long-distance relationships, In-person reunions, grad school, Chicago, Snowed In, winter holidays, References to religion(s), Complicated relationships to religion(s), Not precisely about Judaism but yes in places about Jewishness, Family, Queer Family, Found Family, Family History, Familial trauma, Familial Love, Eliot Waugh's full back catalog of all 4978 volumes of Family Issues, (...also........I mean............ wait for it.........................), Daddy Kink, ::SHRUG EMOJI::, Queer partnership, Queer love, Queer Friendship, Domesticity, Humiliation kink, Size Kink, Eliot Waugh's Canonically Huge Dick, Sexual Frustration, All Quentin wants for Christmas is a little light sexual domination, Sexual Domination, oral fixations, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Gender Play, Pregnancy kink (referenced), Dirty Talk, Love Letters, Vintage amateur erotica, TL;DR:, Curtainfic only nastier, sex and humor, Inappropriate Erections, Work, Art, Collaboration, Partnership, Nurturing, Nourishment, Gifts, Clocks and Clockwork, Stories and lies, grief and mourning, Estrangement and reconciliation, (Re)making things, Magic, minor mendings, The family that raised you, The family that made you, The family you build with your own two hands
Summary:

Not even being a magician can rescue Eliot's Solsti-yule-mas, this year. After graduation, he'd leapt at the chance to apprentice with a world-famous magical architect, even if her office was in the Midwest; but now, with a major deadline looming, he can't take any time off for the holidays; and an approaching blizzard looks like it's about to ground his best friend at LaGuardia, two days before Christmas. The only bright spot? Eliot's boyfriend just beat the storm—and he brought Eliot a very cool present.

Then their holiday plans take a sideways turn when—not even 24 hours into Quentin's visit—Eliot's mother shows up at their front door.

Eliot's perfectly happy to see his mom—seriously, he really is, honestly—but their relationship has always been complicated, and the better part of a decade of radio silence hasn't exactly laid the groundwork for easy cohabitation in a studio apartment during the most stressful time of the year. As the storm hits, suffocating Chicago just when Eliot most needs an escape, it starts to seem like the only thing that can guide him through it may be a 100-year-old clock, made by a long-dead Coldwater, that just might turn out to be a little bit magic.




Yes, you did read that right. It is 208,512 words long. Yes, I did write it in six months. Yes, that was totally crazy, don't do that.

IN ADDITION TO HAVING A MILLION THINGS TO SAY IN-STORY, I have about a million things to say about this story, and a million amazing art posts to reblog, but for now: [tumblr.com profile] yourtinseltinkerbell was an incredible collaborator on this project, and you can check out all her artwork on her Tumblr or via the links on the images from the text. Also, this was an amazing experience and I'm super grateful to the mods for all their help and patience and creativity; oh and also, I am never ever ever signing up for a 6 month challenge again. Other than that—it's gonna have to wait until after I, like, eat a food, and possibly take a nap.

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some challenge season/post-MHHE housekeeping...

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So! Today is, in part, MHHE meta catchup day! This is all very overdue, but I didn't really get time off around Christmas and I was also extremely sleep deprived, so things have been—very nuts, this past week. Anyway:

1) I am hugely behind on reading, both for MHHE and non-challenge fics, and I haven't even touched this year's Yuletide collection—I have several MHHE works and non-challenge Magicians stories open in tabs, though. I have a hot date with them and the electric blanket and a cup of cocoa, later today, though, so expect recs sometime in the next few days/later this week.

2) My statistical analyses of my MHHE fic writing process are still pending; I just haven't had time to work through all of that, so I'm planning to basically just make them as a deliberate, spaced-out series of posts in the new year. This sort of fits well with what I've been thinking of making my Writing Project for 2020 anyway—more on this later.

3) Last Sunday, I posted the story, and then essentially—fell off the face of the planet. This was not intentional??? I was crazy sleep deprived, and kind of. Couldn't, with doing anything that involved being more than the most vague interpretation of "upright"; and then my work/Christmas week was very very very very nuts. HOWEVER: as I planned last Sunday, just... incredibly late, omg, I'm going to be reblogging [tumblr.com profile] yourtinseltinkerbell's art posts on Tumblr slowly over the next few days, and as I do so, I will also post periodic (probably daily?) index posts of art links over here on DW, so everyone can see how brilliant her work is, and laud her accordingly; but hopefully in a way that will minimize tag/dash spam.

4) Full disclosure: I hugely ran out of time on edits to this story. )

Other infuriating things I didn't have time to fix: due to Complicated Technical Reasons, all my alt/title tags on images got removed in posting, and I will need to go in and add them all by hand. Likewise, AO3 rejected, with extreme prejudice, my strategy for not autoplaying gifs (...oversimplification of that problem, but: that's the general idea, anyway) and I didn't have time to come up with a workaround. It is deeply frustrating to have posted something that is in no small part about disability with these two huge, glaring accessibility flaws, right from the get-go; I really apologize. I'm planning to fix it but I need more time to work out how, especially on the gifs front. If you want to know when I have them fixed, please by all means send me a DM or drop me a comment and I will let you know. (In an ideal world where I had two years to write this story instead of six months, I also would've podficced it, but: LOL.)

There's also some other meta story stuff that I didn't have time to link or—frankly—I flat-out forgot; I feel a little weird weird adding it to the story now, but some of it is kind of important (as in—there are I think 3 pieces of artwork [variations on the clock] that I spaced adding to their appropriate place in-story; I feel super awful about forgetting them, but I think [personal profile] yourtinseltinkerbell did too—the problem with making literally dozens of pieces of amazing artwork, whoops). Also, there's [OBVIOUSLY] also a soundtrack; and I have at least one more recipe and possibly two I would like to attach but they're family recipes so don't have convenient internet links, so... well, we'll see... anyway, I'd like to put all that in, but I'm not sure I should? The clock artwork at least, I'm definitely doing, and I'm doing it on this first round of AO3 HTML/CSS fixes, because that was 100% my bad; but I'm still sort of mulling over whether or not to add the other things in or just sort of. Leave it as-is.

5) FINALLY: one million years ago, I had a brief exchange with [personal profile] jesse_the_k re: whether or not my MHHE fic would be readable by people who haven't read or seen The Magicians. I said yes, and also that I'd post a brief primer when I posted the story. Due to literally everything going wrong while I was trying to post last weekend, that didn't happen last Sunday; however: I do have the primer partially drafted and will try to post it later today! It should be pretty short.

*pant pant pant pant*

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A Very Tailored-to-Purpose Magicians Primer

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Well!! I both didn't really get any time off and also have been sick, so this is extremely overdue—best laid plans, et cetera. That said:

This post is a primer for the SyFy TV adaptation of The Magicians. However, it comes with two very very important footnotes:

  1. It is a primer with a very specific and narrow purpose—namely, to give a few people who read my DW and wanted to read my MHHE fic, but aren't familiar with the source, enough background that they can follow the story.
  2. I do not recommend watching SyFy's adaptation of The Magicians.

Re: 1: first—this primer is specifically the SyFy show; the books have a number of differences that don't bear exploring at this juncture. Additionally, in this post I'm skipping or editing a lot of canon content and characterization that's not really relevant to my fic, including—deliberately—sidelining many core-cast canon characters, including several of whom I am extremely fond (and who play larger roles in other stuff I've written), but who are pretty tertiary to this particular fic. I'm also going to mention a few things that are specifically universe-architectural canon-departure decisions, just so it's clear to a casual reader where the story goes (and remains) AU.

Re: 2, This isn't really the place for going into my reasons for withdrawing my earlier (post-S3) recommendation for the show, but in case you weren't here for that trashfire: I feel like I've previouslycovered that stuff, uh. Pretty thoroughly.

I also am going to note that this post is only very lightly illustrated, because this fic was written for a Big Bang challenge and is accompanied by an extraordinary amount of really amazing artwork made by [tumblr.com profile] yourtinseltinkerbell, so I'm assuming that once I get you past telling the two white guys apart, you'll be okay navigating the work as it stands on a visual level.

This post (like my story, and the show) merits warnings for disturbing content and consent issues, including references to... )

You can also assume this contains spoilers for the show, and some (very small/background-y) spoilers for my story.

Okay, housekeeping out of the way, here we go:

Canon explainer, in a hundred words or fewer. )

What the hell is a 'Fillory'? (a.k.a.: a little background about Quentin, fictional fantasy, and the canon world) )

My AUification premise (plus, an explanation of *why* this was my AUification premise). )

Okay. So at this point in this primer, you probably know enough to follow my MHHE fic just fine, because my story starts in a pretty AU place, with regard to characters and their relationships, and it has to give all readers—whether or not they're familiar with the canon—a lot of background as it goes. However, since I know it can be helpful to know a little bit of background about the main and secondary characters in canon, I'm putting that below; as well as a glossary, which you might want to keep open in a tab for reference as you go. I also decided (after quite a bit of internal back and forth about it) to put my OCs' names in the secondary character reference and just mention that they're OCs, so that you can know when there is and is not off-screen background info about a character that you don't have. That said: the character reference for the primary characters is not something I can very effectively keep short, because a lot of what I'm trying to communicate is, like, tone and feel/emotional impressions about those characters. So I'm going to just reiterate now—you are probably good to read the fic at this point, if you want to skip all the rest of this, or just use it as reference as you go.

Okay! Let's do it:

Main characters (in some depth). )

Some additional untangling of canon, meta-canon, and fanon, re: Eliot, Quentin, and Margo. )

Alphabetical reference for secondary characters. )

Um—okay, that's everyone I could think of on, like, four passes through this list... feel free to let me know in comments, though, if I missed any characters that I should add; this story is huge, so I'm sure I did.

Glossary )

(The glossary is another one where I'm sure I missed stuff; please feel free to ask in comments or DMs if there's something you'd like me to add.)



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PROJECT: A Rebuilding Year

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Okay so—first off, I've been making a really conscious effort, right now, to not set myself any more deadlines than I have just in ~life~ or whatever, because we're about to move (*internal screaming*) and also I've been sick and also work continues to be bananapants while giving me almost no time off for the holidays, which is also why the MHHE meta stuff kept getting pushed back and pushed back (I've been working on both the primer and this post in 5- and 10-minute chunks for literally 3 weeks)—anyway, my continued apologies for those squashy/repeated delays. So, yes. This is technically (the first of) my New Year's posts, yes it's happening on January 8th, and yes, that was a conscious decision—as in, the part where I didn't push myself that hard to get it up on the 1st was a conscious decision. The part where I didn't have time to kick back and write some DW posts on New Year's was not a decision, conscious or otherwise. Anyway—in that self-compassion or whatever-y vein: my remaining New Year's posts will go up on no particular schedule, when I finish them, from now until I have them all up; and that is just how it has to be!

Let's get started, shall we?

2019 in Writing: A Review. )

Re: my 2019 output—

  • Personal fave: dead tie between "an ever-fixèd mark" and "A Beginner's Guide to Palmistry". I. Have a thing, and that thing is "lying liars who lie."
  • Personal fave if I didn't feel like it was a 2018 story because that's when I started it: Firebird. I kind of feel like this (and The Marriage Plot more broadly) is going to always be the Magicians story of my heart, but our place in the family of things is kind of settling alongside it as a spiritual antidote to the shit art and politics of S4.
  • Most fun to write: "Hypnotic". Man, I love Penny, and I love writing Penny's wild impatience with Quentin.
  • Most regularly-returned-to as a comfort read: "Measure by Measure". The fuzzy blanket story of my 2019 spring.
  • Proudest of (because technique): "al rovescio". I—I'm still just really fucking proud of this one on a Narrative Hijinx level, even if I have, like, some things about the opening section I'd still like to fix, honestly; and even if this was definitely not the hardest thing I wrote this year.
  • Proudest of (because jfc I can't believe I finished this fucker): our place in the family of things. God. I mean—I do also really love the story, even if—augh I wish I'd had more time to edit it, but. I seriously can't believe I wrote and edited over 200,000 words of fiction in six months, especially not these six months. No wonder I'm tired.

Anyway! TL;DR I wrote... a bunch of stuff...? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some General Writing Observations. )

2020 in Writing: What's Next? )

Project Overview: A Rebuilding Year. )

Future Posts, Maybe, IDK. )

Anyway, so that's what's up with me. How are you? How do we feel? Cold? Do we feel cold? I feel cold, and also kind of thirsty, so—I'm going to post this and then get a cup of tea and cuddle a tiny floofy dog.



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what is the "internet", anyway...

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HELLO. Yesterday before work I wrote a thing!

The Parting Glass (2959 words) by greywash
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Magicians (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater and Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater and Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh (background; past), Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn (background; past)
Characters: Julia Wicker, Eliot Waugh, Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater
Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Rituals, Breakups, Reconciliations, Road Trips, Fix-It, Friendship, The American Southwest, Trailering, Starbucks, YOLO, unless you're on The Magicians and then lbr:, YLALT
Series: Part 4 of Post-Magicians 4x13 Fics
Summary:
Eliot and Julia share a drink. Alice considers a road trip.
This little bonbonlet of a fic was just because sometimes you're in the shower and then you get rolling on a train of thought about Eliot playing Surf Bum Dress-Up with Quentin as his doll and it makes a fic that's been percolating snap into focus and then you have to write it before work OR ELSE, says your brain, even though the "or else" is really like... "or else you'll have to finish it tomorrow." Oh well, I got it done, then [personal profile] breathedout cast an eye, and then I posted it at lunch; it all worked out.

Otherwise... all is madness; we're still only like half moved; thanks to the kind offices of [personal profile] breathedout's parents, our kitchen is almost totally unpacked (AT LAST) but basically everything else of mine is still in boxes (I'm actually fairly okay with that, I have all the stuff I need and I don't really have any furniture yet anyway, but in the next couple days I'd like to at least finish getting my closet and bathroom together and find my makeup so I look slightly less like a cave troll every day...); the dog loves his yard; we're both exhausted and I've had... idk, the flu or a very bad cold, AGAIN, despite being sick less than a month ago.

ANYWAY!!!! I want to sleep for a year!!!!! Instead I guess I should go to work, huh.

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ESSAY: The Black Box, Part 1 of 4: Introduction

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Okay. So—I've been working on this post—really, these posts, since it makes the most sense to do it as a series—for quite a while, now, and I'm still... not very satisfied with them, but yesterday I ended up leaving a comment in private that hit a lot of the same bases and two whole people told me it was helpful! Which was very validating. (Thanks, friends.) So I think I'm just going to take a little time today to get the first part as cleaned up and sensical as I can, and then... set it free.

*clears throat*


For some reason, lately, no idea why, I've been thinking a lot about data analysis as a practice; and I've been thinking a lot about how to discuss how we, both as individuals and as a society, can use data to drive decisions in ways that are sensible.

I'm emphasizing that word—"sensible"—really hard for reasons I will go into later; but before I get to that, I want to say: specifically, what I've been thinking about is the following question:

What does good, data-driven decision-making look like, when the data—and any conclusions that are drawn from the data—are by necessity low-confidence?

"Low-confidence" is science for: we have some information, but we know that the information isn't complete, but we don't know what's missing, which means we don't know how much we can trust the information that we do have. So—what the heck do we do now???

That's what I want to talk about. Because—well. Because it's April 29, 2020; and that question up there is just—the state of play, on April 29, 2020; and part of what is feeding the churning vortex of anxiety in which we are all living, on April 29, 2020, is that identifying that question and sitting with that question and grappling with that question effectively is, quite frankly, something that most people, through absolutely no fault of their own, have been extraordinarily ill-equipped to do.

And I think, actually, that I might kind of be able to help!

(Yes, this post is about Covid-19; of course this post is about Covid-19. Did anyone think this post was not about Covid-19?)

On that note... I'm not cutting the whole post, because I'm using cuts internally to hide a lot of explanatory bits but still let people read summary bits, if they want to. (If you land here via a link, you can view this post with cuts intact from today's date page.) BUT: I am going to add this link, which you can click on to go down to an anchor I've embedded at the bottom of the post and not behind a cut, in case you are avoiding Covid content—I think you should be able to use that link (once more with feeling) to teleport you down beyond the bad lady talking about diseases and also math. If it doesn't work for some reason, you can also just do a "find in page" on the phrase, "skip this post anchor should drop you here" (no quotation marks) to get to whatever is below this post on your feed. Godspeed, my friends! ♥

Some initial introductory notes and disclaimers...

...re: grammar. )

...re: my background, and level of expertise. )

...re: my specific concerns and motivations, in making these posts. )

[one metaphor, slightly strained] )

...re: what this series is; and what it is not. )

So. This is where I'm starting:

  1. Data and data analysis are tools.
  2. Lots of people—in fact, I suspect most people—don't really understand what they are, and they don't understand how to use them (for reasons that are unfortunate but also, ftr, totally understandable and in no way reflections on those people's intelligence or worth as human beings).
  3. I have pretty good reasons to expect that I kind of do understand what they are, and that I do (in general) understand how to use them.
    • And I know, actually, quite a bit about how you can't use them, because that actually sort of is my specialist subject.
  4. Specifically: I understand how I can and can't use data and data analysis to construct a mental picture of a problem that I know I do not understand.
  5. Even more specifically: I have some reason to think that I can explain how a person who is not an expert on Thing X—in this case, Covid-19—can use data and data analysis to build enough of a mental picture of Covid-19 to just... make weathering the outbreak a little bit less deranging.

Essentially—I'm not going to give you a library card catalogue full of carefully organized and analyzed information about Covid-19. I'm not even going to show you how to make one. But I am going to try to show you how to construct a DIY three-file sorter from duct tape and cardboard boxes where you can dump the chewed-on torn-up half-invisible-ink coffee-stained research notes the universe is throwing at you constantly, right now, by the reamful—and I'm going to explain to you why that is, probably, good enough.

That's all! Small goals!

The sense of "sensible"-ity.

So. Again: in this series, what I want to talk to you about is using data to make sensible decisions.

What do I mean by "sensible"?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked!!! Because I think that's really the question that we aren't asking right now; and failing to ask that question underscores a very common, and very understandable, and also very dangerous misunderstanding of what "data" is; and what "making decisions based on data," full stop, means.

I can help with that! I think!!

I think the place where we need to start is actually earlier than what "sensible" means. I think we need to start with what "data" means. Because if we don't understand what data is, we have absolutely no prayer whatsoever of understanding what we can and cannot do with it.

Definition: "data".

What data means is: some stuff happened. Some people wrote it down.

[expanded.] )

I really, really would like everyone reading this to sit with this idea for a second: data means "some stuff happened and some people wrote it down."

I'm going to keep hammering on this because over and over and over and over again, I am seeing people—very smart people, people I respect and like and know to be competent adult humans who reason well—failing to distinguish between the data about Covid-19, and the stuff that comes after the data: the math, and the science, and the policy-making, and the science reporting, and the ethical decisions that go into all of those things that come after the data. But the data and the science are not the same thing. And we need to understand the ways that the problems and limitations of one are and are not connected to the problems and limitations of the other.

[examples.] )

So. What data tells you is: some stuff happened and some people wrote it down. But what data doesn't tell you, and why data doesn't tell you that stuff, is also hugely, critically, incontinently important; and this is where people—all people, because scientists are just people and aren't immune to this either—can use data to make bad decisions.

I just said "bad decisions" and now I'm immediately going to say—I don't love that language. )

a priori, a posteriori, two priori, two posteriori— )

So, fine. We all talk about good decisions and bad decisions colloquially, yes. But this series is about making decisions, when you fundamentally can't know what is going to happen until after you've made them. So I think it's more helpful, if what we're going to talk about is how to make decisions, to have more specific criteria for distinguishing the decisions we're trying to make from the decisions we're trying to avoid, and I think that those criteria need to be criteria that are in evidence at the time we're trying to make the decision. Not after we've already made it and seen what happened. And a useful framework for me, personally, is to think about whether or not a decision is sensible:

Two propositions.

(which I will be developing further as this series goes along:)

Proposition 1: a sensible decision is a decision which:

  1. by some reasonable, justifiable, and consistent metric, minimizes the likelihood of a bad outcome (or maximizes the likelihood of a better one);
  2. is made with the understanding that the basis for said decision may in fact be flawed; and
  3. admits mental space for the possibility that the ongoing bits of that decision may need to change as the data evolves, to remain consistent with #1 and #2.

Proposition 2 (and—bear with me on this one): you can make sensible decisions based on science even if you don't, actually, understand the science itself.


I'm defining sensible the way that I'm defining it for a whole bunch of reasons, some of which I've discussed but others of which I've just implied, so let me really quickly run down the general version of the list, so we're all on the same page:

The moving parts of a sensible decision. )

Some ticky boxes.

This is a very long justify-your-existence sort of an introduction, but it's long for a reason. I want everyone to start by understanding what it is I'm trying to do—and what it is that I'm not going to be addressing at all.

So, in that light, I have some goals. I want to tell you what they are, so you can decide whether or not you're interested in reading the rest of the series.

So:

  1. I want to explain how science-y people make decisions based on science, even when we don't, actually, understand the science itself;
  2. I want to give you, the man on the Clapham omnibus ordinary human (or human-impersonating alien, this is a safe space) on the internet, some basic tools for how you can make decisions based on science, without requiring or expecting you to understand the science itself.

    I want to do all of those things because:
    • I know a lot of people find science, and science-based decision making, incredibly intimidating.
    • I know a lot of people are already incredibly anxious, right now, about these very issues.
    • I want to tell you right now that both of those feelings are okay, and that I will do my absolute level-best to make this series of posts useful to you even if you are currently holding one or both of those feelings inside of you, right now, as you skim it.
    • So I'm trying to design the layout of this series to be, as much as possible, something that people can read in parts; or put down and come back to; or read only at a headline level; and still get something useful out of the experience.
  3. Finally, I want to align the tools that I give you, and the context in which I'm establishing those tools, to not only be useful in your own individual decision-making, but be tools that you can—and I would gently suggest, probably should—be using when you find yourselves evaluating the decisions your leaders (political, community, religious, professional, whatever) are currently making. Not just because civic engagement or universal duty or blah blah blah—like, honestly, right now? Fuck that. Right now I want to do, like, data processing first aid: I want to stop people from bleeding out because there is too much math happening to them. And I hope that a side effect of that is that you become more able, and find it easier, to critically reflect upon what your leaders are doing, because I think that will make you feel less powerless. I think it will be helpful for you, if you can decide whether or not to wear this mask to the grocery store today; but I also think it will be helpful for you to be able to assess things like:
    • Should my leaders be using science and scientific data to make this law/decree/decision?
    • Are my leaders using science and scientific data to make this law/decree/decision?
    • When they use those things to make these laws/decrees/decisions, are they using that science and scientific data correctly?
    • Are the laws/decrees/decisions that they are making—based on science or otherwise—sensible decisions?
    • And how does their decision-making, good or bad, alter or affect what a sensible decision might look like for you?

So. I think that's probably a reasonable (dare I say—sensible) place to stop. I will rejoin you tomorrow with Part 2 of 4: Everyone's Covid Math is Wrong (and Why That Is, Actually, Kind of Okay).

(skip this post anchor should drop you here! thanks, friends!)



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Re: race, fandom, OTW, democracy, et cetera

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Okay, so—first off, I think a lot of people around here already know this, but the disclaimer on this post is: I'm an OTW volunteer and the specifics of my role limit the amount/ways that I'm able to publicly participate in discussions of OTW policy and governance. So my wording here is very carefully chosen to tread a very fine line, and hopefully I will manage that! We'll see!! Sparkly smile!!!

FIRST: while I am an OTW member and volunteer, I am saying everything in this post in my capacity as a private fan.

SECOND: racism currently is and long historically has been a problem in fandom. This is, IMO, a "Well, duh" sort of a statement, but again: I'm sort of writing this post along a tightrope, so I am to an extent limited to "Well, duh" statements. So! Yes, racism currently is and long historically has been a problem in fandom.

2(b): Since I am kind of limited to "Well, duh" statements, I am going to punt a tiny bit, here, and say that if you would like to read more about race and racism in fandom, [personal profile] runpunkrun has been including quite a few links to fans currently discussing this issue in recent Weekend Update posts.

THIRD: the Organization for Transformative Works is the organization which manages and runs AO3, Fanlore, and a number of other fan-volunteer-driven fannish endeavors. Their policies are driven by a volunteer-comprised and member-elected Board of Directors, whose election season will shortly begin!

3(b): You are eligible to vote, this year, for the OTW's next Board of Directors if you become a member of the OTW between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. You become eligible to become a member of the OTW by donating $10 or more at any point between July 1st of last year and June 30th of this year.

Yes, that's correct! If you have already donated $10 or more in that timeframe, you may already be a member! (You can find out if your membership is current by contacting the Elections team.)

And yes, that's correct, too: you have two more days to donate $10 if you are not already a member to become one. Here is the link to donate (which also mentions the $10 minimum): Donate to the Organization for Transformative Works.

Please note: there is a required/radio ticky bubble, near the bottom, that says "Do you want to be an OTW member? ($10 minimum donation)" - if you want to become a member, you should select "Yes."

4 AND ALSO CAN I BOLD THIS ENTIRE BULLET POINT BECAUSE THIS IS WHY I'M POSTING RIGHT NOW EVEN THOUGH I AM ALSO IN A HURRY: You have until 11:59 pm UTC on June 29th [link will show you when that is in your timezone] to ask questions that will be put to the current batch of candidates for the OTW Board of Directors!

  1. This is the Elections team's section of the OTW website. All the Elections Things live there.
  2. This is the announcement post for this year's election, including links to candidate bios and an announcement of the candidate Q&A.
  3. This is the form you fill out to ask questions for the candidate Q&A. (Under "Category," select "Candidate Q&A".)

Please note that the deadline to ask questions is before the deadline to join as a member and be eligible to vote this year!

The deadline to ask questions is in about twenty-eight hours!

The deadline to join so that you can vote is in about fifty-two hours!

There are a lot of exclamation points in this post!

I am really really excited to share all this publicly-available but oft-neglected information with my Dreamwidth and Tumblr readers!



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